The Icicle Melts
by My Amalgamut
Summary: Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk.
1. One of Seven

**The Icicle Melts** Chapter 1  
**Author:** My Amalgamut  
**Universe/Series:** Star Trek {Reboot | STXI | AU}  
**Rating:** PG-13 (sensitive subject matter and some language)  
**Word count:** 2,173 (this chapter)  
**Genre:** General | Drama  
**Tropes:** Tarsus IV  
**Warnings:** Sensitive subject matter including (but not limited to) child neglect, abuse, and genocide  
**Summary:** Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk. Logic would tell anyone to step back and leave it. Amanda had been called a great many things in the years since Vulcan had been made her home... but logical certainly wasn't one of them.  
**Beta:** Much mad love to LJ user _fagur_fiskur _for the beta read. I dedicate this first chapter to her.

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**The Icicle Melts**

_Chapter One_

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It had been one week since the Federation and its rescue teams had arrived on Tarsus IV. What had greeted them upon contact was the hellish battlefield of a once simple colony torn apart by panic, famine, and violence.

Amidst the chaos caused by Kodos' tyranny it took the fleet days before they could begin evacuating even the most able-bodied colonists. After seven days of rounding up terrified people into massive ships, hunting down and incarcerating the dictator's supporters, and wading through a seemingly endless tide of beaurocracy, the mass of the relief effort finally set course back to Earth. Left behind was a ragtag medical camp set up to tend to those who were too injured or sick to be moved immediately. Operating near solely on volunteer sweat, the team was assisted by a select platoon of Starfleet officers with orders to continue searches throughout their duration on the colony in an attempt to recover anyone left alive, either disabled or just too scared to have come forth on their own.

This was how Amanda Grayson, volunteering for the Starfleet Tarsus IV recovery mission, met Jim Kirk.

"No! Let go of me! Let _go!_ You bastards are just like them! Let me go!"

Amanda was startled enough to drop her data PADD as a child was dragged, cursing and flailing wildly, into the makeshift medical ward she had been resupplying. She whirled around to see two aids manhandle the struggling boy onto one of the gurneys. He was covered in dirt and muck from head to toe, smudged all over his clothes and skin in varying shades of brown to black, but the layers of debris still could not dull or hide the blonde sheen of his hair. She would place the boy's age somewhere between twelve and fifteen, but it was hard to tell for sure given the physical state of the few children they'd recovered.

"Amanda, we need a sedative _now!"_ one of the men barked.

Amanda stood quickly, but didn't move to the cabinet where she'd just deposited the sterile hypos. From the very beginning she'd had trouble with the concept of using such strong medications on children who had already suffered so much trauma to their bodies. Large, electrifying blue eyes pinning her stare, sharp and vibrant despite their sunken appearance, didn't make it any less debatable.

"Amanda!" the aid yelled again with a grunt, because he'd just taken a muddy shoe to the face.

Before she could respond, the boy snarled out a warning. "You bring a needle anywhere _near_ me and you won't take away that hand."

He continued to struggle in the grip of the larger men (who were fit and healthy and a little on the bulky side, in fact, so how in the world did it take that much manpower to restrain a child that was barely skin and bones?). His eyes, however, remained locked with hers in a battle of wills.

"Why are you fighting? We're here to help you," Amanda said, a serenely as possible over the clatter of the instruments he'd just managed to boot across the room.

He laughed meanly, twisting his arm until it looked he might pull something, but the aid only held tighter. _"Right,"_ he spat. "Just like you're helping Kodos' dogs, too?"

She took a deep breath. "We're here to _help._ That means everyone."

That only seemed to make him angrier. He yelled louder, and the early signs of a developing infection became apparent when the words sounded as if they scratched his lungs coming up. _"What_ everyone, lady? Take a look, not a whole lotta everyone to go around, and guess whose fault that is? If you're helping those _pigs_ then you're the enemy, too!"

She went quiet. There was no argument that she could make that would hold any sort of significance for this child. It barely made sense to Amanda, and only in that skewed way that social sensitivity in the midst of these sorts of tragedies ever made sense.

She had volunteered for the Tarsus mission, like so many others, because the news of what had happened to the colony was so heinous it made her physically ill upon hearing it. How could she _not_ want to help these people? Yet it was a double edged sword, because in doing so she was resigned to also help in the rescue of men who she considered nothing above murderers. These were men who'd hunted down and slaughtered innocent civilians, _children_ like the one before her, for the sake of keeping their own hides off Kodos' radar. It was sickening. It was even more repugnant when she thought of bandaging the wounds of these same men. Yes, they would be in prison, eventually when they recuperated enough to stand trial in Federation court, but they would never know any true regret or remorse for their actions.

Oh, she understood the _logic_ behind Fleet's offer of leniency to supporters who turned themselves in, of _course_ she did, but all of those reasons were political. Not one appealed to her humanity in the least and there were parts of Amanda (large ones) that sided with the boy. It was a matter of moral confliction that Amanda had more difficulty reconciling than she wanted to admit, as a pacifist and an intellectual, and here was this little boy digging into it with mucky fingers.

Oh, if Sarek could see her now.

She approached slowly, but confidently, and knelt down so that she wouldn't be so imposing. She tried a small smile. It occurred to her that she would just have to use the same tactics with him that she used to coach herself each and every time she had to venture in good will to that one tent they kept on the far side of camp, barred away from the colonist patients.

"It's true, we... _can't_ discriminate against those who need our help right now, and as unfair as it must seem to you, that includes people who helped Kodos. We can't decide who deserves to live and who doesn't. Wasn't that what started this mess in the first place?" That gave the young man pause. She sensed some hedge way and pushed. "Please. I promise we won't hurt you. We're not here for Kodos. _I'm_ here because I just want to talk to you and make sure you're going to be okay. And perhaps try to get you to eat something? I won't make you do or say anything you don't want to."

It was physically apparent when he finally gave in. She saw the little body lose some of its tension, if only marginally at first, and there was a quick flash in his eyes that came and went with the word 'eat'. When his body let go of the fight completely he seemed to shrink before her eyes, suddenly so much smaller than he'd appeared seconds before.

"... I guess. Jus'..." He bit his lip and trailed off. His eyes flickered to the floor and back a couple times in hesitation before he continued. "Just, no drugs, okay? I don't need 'em, and..." He jerked one of his arms, still gripped uncomfortably by the aid standing over him. "Can it just be you? I won't fight, or run or nothin'. Promise."

She caught it when he muttered "cuz these two're jackasses" under his breath, giving a subtle nod at the aids. Her lips twitched but she withheld a laugh.

"Alright."

She stood and motioned for the men to let him go. Warily, they released him and moved back a step each. The boy rubbed his arms where their hands had been, but made no move to go anywhere. She frowned disapprovingly at the red marks they'd left, obvious even under the dirt. The two men at least had the sense to look abashed under the glare she settled on them.

Amanda walked them to the entrance of the facility (what they commonly referred to as 'tents' around camp were something more like the frame of an old terran double-wide trailer covered with a durable poly-cloth tarp) and assured them that she didn't need their assistance.

"Be careful," one of them warned. "We've been after him for three days. He's quick, kept giving us the slip. Floored we managed to catch him off guard. I'd use the sedative until we can talk some sense into him, if I were you."

The way they spoke of it, as if they'd been hunting an escaped fugitive instead of a helpless kid, bothered her. She'd noticed that as time wore on, more and more of the officers that Starfleet had stationed were treating it that way in their weariness, and it just added to her growing list of worries on Tarsus. She thanked the man for his advice, if a bit patronizingly, and sent them on their way. When they were gone, she turned back to find the boy still on the gurney, looking around and fidgeting like he didn't know how to sit still for all the world. She took a second to fret over the several muscular disorders that his twitching could be a sign of, then took another to be sad that any of those were a real possibility and that she couldn't just grant it as the nervous child's gesture it probably was.

But she was not a doctor, and she was going to have someone who was look at him soon, so for now she would direct her attention to the basics.

"May I know your name?" she asked, dispelling the quiet.

He looked at her, startled, as if he'd forgotten she was even there. "Uh... yeah. My name's, uh- whole name?"

"If that's okay. We need record of survivors."

Something changed in his face when she picked up her fallen PADD, darkening as he tensed up all over again. His eyes were trained on the device in her hand, watching it like she'd just picked up a rifle. She glanced down at the PADD and back.

"Kodos... he took lists like this, didn't he?" He didn't have to say anything, she could see the answer as clear as day.

"He went out an' surveyed everyone," he responded anyway. His voice wavered as he recalled the memory. "Told everyone… told us the lists were for something they weren't."

Jim kept glaring at the formerly innocuous piece of technology, his expression a mask of suspicion and his posture a little too much an imitation of a cornered animal. Her little bit of progress was quickly reverting in on itself and Amanda knew then and there that she would need to avoid any actions even slightly reminiscent of the madman's. At least until he trusted her more. She set the PADD down and raised her hands in surrender.

"Okay, alright. No lists. You don't even need to give me your full name yet, but it would help me greatly if I at least knew what to call you?"

He studied her face with narrowed eyes, searching for what Amanda couldn't guess, but she stayed still and let him do it. After some minutes of what was turning into a staring contest, he finally let his fists unfurl (she hadn't even noticed they'd furled at all) and leaned back again, satisfied by whatever it was he saw. And though he did not break the stare outright, she did notice his gaze flicking to something behind her, try as he might to conceal it. She blinked, intrigued, and turned to follow his line of sight.

Ah.

A mini-fridge sat just a few feet away, tucked into an inconspicuous corner next to the computer terminal. He obviously recognized it exactly for what it was. Amanda quickly made her way over to it and kneeled down to open the small door, pulling out one of the pre-packaged sandwiches and small bottles of water that the camp kept stocked for the volunteers. It wasn't the food intended for the colonists- who, for their own health, were supposed to be placed on strictly mandated rations until the doctors said otherwise- but she'd work with what was available on short notice. She opened the package and popped the top of the water bottle, handing the drink and half the sandwich to him with a reminder not to devour it too quickly.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't listen. The food was gone in a matter of seconds, maybe less. He took a second to wipe the crumbs from his mouth, and then lick them off his fingers, completely mindless of the dirt he swallowed down right along. He gave the other half of the sandwich a lingering glance, but was appeased enough for the moment to answer her question at last.

"Jim. You can call me Jim."

Her smile finally graduated from carefully cheery to soft and genuine, something she was much more comfortable with. She allowed herself a tiny sense of victory. "Jim. It's so nice to meet you. My name is Amanda."

_To Be Continued..._

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**This is a non-profiting, fan-based work of fiction. Star Trek and all subsequent properties are (c) Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.**


	2. Two of Seven

**The Icicle Melts** Chapter 2  
**Author:** My Amalgamut  
**Universe/Series:** Star Trek {Reboot | STXI | AU}  
**Rating:** PG-13 (sensitive subject matter and some language)  
**Word count:** 3,179 (this chapter)  
**Genre:** General | Drama  
**Tropes:** Tarsus IV  
**Warnings:** Sensitive subject matter including (but not limited to) child neglect, abuse, and genocide  
**Summary:** Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk. Logic would tell anyone to step back and leave it. Amanda had been called a great many things in the years since Vulcan had been made her home... but logical certainly wasn't one of them.  
**Beta:** LJ user _fagur_fiskur_, who is awesomeness squared.

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**The Icicle Melts**

_Chapter Two_

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A month had come and gone since that hissing, biting scrap of a boy had been dropped at Amanda's feet. Most of that time had been spent in a series of trial and error experiments between the camp of rescue volunteers and Jim. At least he'd stopped kicking their equipment around and running the nurses in haggard circles just because he could. It was about the most respect anyone but Amanda herself could expect from him.

It was no surprise, then, at any given time of the day for Jim to be seen practically attached to Amanda's hip, when he let himself be seen at all. Amanda generously allowed this proximity, going so far as to extend a proverbial wing for him to travel under, and in time he began to let his walls down and she began to learn. The first thing she'd learned about Jim was that she'd need to horde a veritable arsenal of anti-allergen hypos just to combat the trouble he got himself into. It had been a harrowing educational experience for all involved.

The second thing she'd managed to learn was on that very same day, when the risk of anaphylactic shock had passed and she was allowed to remove the oxygen mask from his face. He used his newly regained lung function to tell her his first secret (with _words_ and before any imminent threat to his heath- something she wished he'd deigned to do earlier and save her a lot of grief). His name. James Tiberius Kirk.

She immediately made the connection, of course. Who within a hundred light years of Federation space hadn't heard of his father, the renowned hero George Kirk? Jim didn't like to talk about him. (He'd only let her bring it up once. "How can I talk about someone I never met?" he'd said, and that had been the end of it.) His father aside, Jim told her about his older brother Sam, at great length, and his mother Winona considerably less, almost as if he didn't know what he _could_ say about her. His stepfather, Frank, was also someone he didn't like to talk about.

She learned that he grew up on a farm in Iowa and that as much as he hated the stars or more specifically _Starfleet_, and this was something he was determined to never change his mind on, he found the only thing a farm in the middle of nowhere was good for was _star gazing._ (Subsequent to that little revelation, Amanda learned that Jim knew the meaning of 'vicious irony' very well indeed.) Through further conversations she learned that despite his appalling affinity for cutting class, when he said he bothered to show up for school at all, he was remarkably bright academically. In particular, she discovered that he had a frightening intellect for warp theory and mechanics despite his protestations against ever putting it to use.

And the thing Amanda learned that she maybe prized above all else, was that once Jim had decided to open up and be himself that his presence became a virtual _beacon_, an all-consuming light that never failed to break through the dark of Tarsus no matter how grim it became; his charm and cunning never dimming, inspiring her to never let it. She felt honored by this burgeoning trust he'd placed in her, and in exchange she indulged his occasional curiosities about her own life.

However pleasant or even cathartic these exchanges were, though, Amanda still had many responsibilities around camp and there were frequently cases in which time for conversation was in short supply. At intervals, things would get so busy for the volunteers that Amanda would find herself with none to spare for Jim until the evening hours. When this happened and she and others' attentions were divided in so many different directions, Jim was typically left to do as he pleased.

He'd proven himself intelligent and capable enough (if a little hard to get along with for... everyone), and he was by far one of the more self-sustaining colonists still on planet, so as long as the camp hands understood that he was under Amanda's supervision they didn't bother him much. It wasn't commonly a problem because Jim didn't want to often leave the civilian barracks (which had been erected in the early days of the evacuation, when they'd needed to house several thousand people, but now stood mostly empty). On the occasion that he _was_ around and about all by himself, he assisted as much as he was able to, tending the basic needs of more debilitated colonists to help lighten the nurses' loads.

He avoided the isolated tent at the far end of camp like the plague.

Finally, when the shifts would change for the night and Amanda was allowed a moment of reprieve, she generally sought out her unsaid charge to make sure he was doing well. Sometimes he didn't look it, and sometimes he told her how he'd "gotten in the way" of some officer or nurse or someone, and that he was sorry they'd had to yell at him and that he didn't mean to mess anything up. Sometimes, Amanda would have to excuse herself just after he'd finished these stories, to quickly take care of some trivial task she'd "forgotten" about. Coincidentally, while Amanda was away, the very person who'd been in Jim's tale would approach and offer him an apology, explain that they'd only had a bad day, and then leave just as quickly (usually looking on the verge of tears). Amanda always returned with a very cheerful smile.

She did have moments of guilt, and felt a little foolish if she thought too much on it, because she knew that since meeting Jim he had become special, and growing attached was one of the first things you were taught _not_ to do on these missions. It didn't mean she was negligent of her other responsibilities by any means, she cared entirely too much about this mission and her role in it, but Jim's new place in her life was dear to a very important part of her nature. It was the same part that had bloomed the very moment she became a mother, and still continued to grow. Amanda couldn't exactly explain it, but knew in her heart that Jim needed her guidance and understanding more than anyone else.

Perhaps he reminded her, in some very small way, of her son, who she missed to the point of aching.

With such a close and ever strengthening connection between the two of them, it wasn't long until Amanda noticed some peculiarities in Jim's behavior and began to keep an even closer eye.

To her surprise, she discovered that after evening fell late and most volunteers had gone to bed, leaving only a sparse night shift to monitor the medical wards, Jim found some way to sneak off campus without the officers on guard ever noticing. That first discovery led to the second; that the camp attendants were sorely mistaken if they thought Jim spent his time in the barracks while they weren't watching. Warning bells rose in her mind with the exposure of these absences but Amanda found she was as equally curious as she was worried about his whereabouts. Since he was returning each day in one piece, she decided to remain the silent observer for the time being.

She pried first into his medical condition and was informed by the doctors that Jim had not been gaining back the weight he should have, even though his nutritional intake had been upped and all of his medical scans came back negative for intestinal worms or viral infections that could explain the anomaly. Simply put, it just didn't look like he was eating- at least not very much. There were no signs of bulimic disorder, and Amanda knew for herself that Jim never threw his food away. So what did he do with it?

The pieces finally started falling into place when time came closing in on six weeks from the day Jim had arrived. She'd heard gossip from the medical staff and officers alike (it was not eavesdropping, ladies did not _eavesdrop_) regarding the search parties. Of course, everyone already knew the reason behind Starfleet's military presence on Tarsus. The interesting part was that, according to the officers, there was solid evidence of even more civilians who'd escaped the slaughter, but not a single new survivor had been brought to camp in weeks. More interesting still, rumor had it that the evidence was of _children_ scavenging and salvaging for survival in the barrenness that remained of the colony. Yet for all their efforts Starfleet still couldn't track them down, as if someone was actively hiding them.

The puzzle was completed one evening when Amanda was asked to cover mid-month inventory and the data on her PADD showed that food reserves were lower stocked than what should have been expected. As if someone had been sneaking out small portions on a routine bases.

"There are others you know about, others nearer to your age, aren't there?" she asked three days later, having toiled and re-toiled over a way to bring her suspicions up that wouldn't send Jim fleeing. Unexpectedly, her words didn't seem to surprise him. Instead he looked solemn, as if he'd known he would be found out, just not when.

It was still and very quiet after her question. Jim stared at the food she realized he likely had no intention of eating, worrying his lip between his teeth, before deciding on what to say. He hesitated over each word, choosing his defense as carefully as possible. "They're... afraid. I take care of 'em. I've been taking care of 'em since it started. I still... They're my kids, you know?"

Strangely, she supposed she did. That same feeling was what prompted most of her actions concerning him, as well as her next words. "Oh, Jim... but you're just a kid yourself."

He stiffened, possibly feeling a little patronized but knowing she didn't intend it that way. He took the sting to his pride on the chin and relaxed.

"Not really, no," he said. "Well, maybe, but these're even younger ones. Okay, a couple are older but... you know. I'd already been through a lot before all- all of _this_, so even the older ones just kinda trust me to do what's right for 'em."

"The problem is that you still don't trust us."

He bit his lip some more. "No... I trust _you._ But you're not Starfleet. I don't trust Starfleet."

Jim had possessed a bitter resentment for Starfleet long before Tarsus IV, and for reasons not all of which he'd told Amanda. He didn't like the soldiers stationed around camp, who wore their shiny 'Fleet emblems with pride, and he would frequently watch the medical wards as people inside wasted away in suffering, wondering aloud what had taken them so long to send help.

Amanda paused, mulling over the words she wanted to say, unsure if she wanted to make promises she might not be able to keep. It was resolved that she would just have to make sure she kept them. "What if I give you my word that the children will be alright?"

Jim shuffled himself around, something she noticed he did when he was feeling trapped or wanted a conversation to end. He rubbed at the back of his head in an aggravated gesture. It was evident this conversation unnerved him- that he didn't quite know what Amanda would do if he told her too much.

"The lists. You remember the thing about the lists?" he asked with a glance up at her. She nodded. "Yeah, well they remember the lists, too. How could any of 'em ever trust me again if I hand 'em all over to a bunch'a grownups who first thing they'll do is stab'm with needles and catalog'm?"

Amanda was quite used to bluntness in her life, but Jim's was a very unique brand at times. Jim huffed at the grimace that crossed her face. He looked away and quieted his voice down. "I'm not saying I'll never bring 'em here. I'm just trying to ease into it. They know I come here. I promised 'em all I'd make sure it was safe."

Amanda placed a hand on her head and rubbed faintly. She was trying to reason with a child who was not completely _un_reasonable but definitely stubborn as a mule. "But what about when someone else from camp finds them? Wouldn't they be more afraid if strangers just came in and took them?"

"Amanda..." he said, voice drawn to a whisper, and he so rarely used her name that she shut her mouth and listened. "I learned to hide these kids... really good. Kodos' guys they- they had guns. Some even had dogs... they fed their stupid dogs before they- can you believe that? And if they caught you..." He looked vaguely green, eyes wet, and he swayed a bit in his chair like he couldn't decide if he needed to cry or vomit. Or both. "You saw the bodies, Amanda. You know which ones I'm talkin' about." Jim looked at the table as if he could stare a hole straight through it, tugging mindlessly at the long sleeves of his shirt. "There's desperate n'... hungry. An' there's... there's... not human anymore. That's what they wanted to do to us. We'd of been those bodies if I let 'em find us."

Amanda swallowed thickly, throat dry. Jim shined so golden so much of the time that it was too easy for her to forget how he'd had to live for the months before she'd known him.

Yes, she'd seen the bodies.

It hardly sat well with her conscience knowing an entire group of children were lost and alone in the aftermath of Tarsus IV, hungry and in need of professional medical attention, but Amanda could see there was no forcing this argument her way. Nothing that wouldn't erupt in catastrophe, at any rate. She'd have to put her faith in Jim and trust that he'd come to make the right decision. And she did trust Jim to do what he _thought_ was right, but he was still such a child whether he wanted to think so or not, easily led astray despite his intentions. Amanda just hoped she was making the right decision, too.

"I understand," she yielded. Losing this battle, however, did not mean losing the war. She would still do her job.

"Wait here," she said, rising gracefully from her chair and disappearing.

Jim was alone and confused for ten or so minutes before Amanda came back with one of the canvas medical satchels the camp kept supplied in abundance. She walked up to him and pulled back the cover. Jim peered curiously into the bag, which she'd stuffed with food and some basic first aid necessities.

"I'll help from a distance for now, but bring them in soon, Jim," she spoke seriously. It wasn't usual that she had to be stern with him, but then she was long out of practice with reprimanding children anyway. She hoped the severity of her request translated. "We won't manage to get away with this for long."

He blinked down at the offering, stunned into speechlessness. At least for as long as he ever achieved that state. "You'll help me?"

Her brow furrowed, the question catching her off guard. Did he not trust her as much as she'd let herself think? "Of course I'll help you, Jim. Did you think I wouldn't?"

"Maybe?" he said honestly.

Amanda pursed her lips. She strung up the satchel tight and set in his lap, taking his hands and folding them over the bag. She kept her hold as she spoke. "Jim, you don't have to be afraid to come to me for help, because I will _always_ give it, I promise." Amanda took measure of the following words before speaking them, needing Jim to understand and believe them. "I care very much about this rescue, and I care about the people we've saved, but Jim, look at me now," she said and raised her palm to gently tilt his chin up. "You come first."

She remembered saying something like that to her own son on occasion, and she meant the words as much now as she did then. It wasn't that she was trying to take the place of whoever Jim's mother may be, really she wasn't, but she couldn't turn her actions around and make them something they weren't. Disregarding every rule in the book, Amanda was convinced that without a second thought she would put Jim before every single man, woman, and alien on Tarsus.

Just as any mother would.

She almost didn't hear his choked whisper of "Why?" Amanda could only assume that Jim couldn't comprehend why a virtual stranger would care so much. She smiled enigmatically and moved the hand from his chin to ruffle his hair.

"Well, that's one of the nice things about being a child. You don't really need to understand why, only take for granted that it is." She hadn't realized that she'd sat back down until she needed to stand again. Doing so, she brushed herself off- more to give her hands something to do than because she was actually dirty- and said in a much lighter mood as she pushed his untouched plate forward, "Now, I expect you to eat that. I'm going to be very busy this afternoon and I probably won't see you again until bedtime. _Yes_, you still have a bedtime, don't argue with me." He stifled the forming scowl. She asked, softer, gesturing to the parcel in his hands. "You'll be careful?"

A smile, at long last, broke through his expression and that light she adored so much was back in his eyes. He said nothing, but the spork full of food he popped into his curling mouth was answer enough. Amanda nodded and took her leave.

Only when she stepped out into the mildly warm daylight did her mouth straighten in a thoughtful frown. She would have to start thinking of ways to cover for his disappearances, because sooner or later someone would catch on. When that happened, Starfleet would step in, Jim would be subject to interrogation without any concern for his own mental state, and the children would be tracked down and brought in by force. That military mantra, _the needs of the many,_ would victimize Jim as badly as Kodos ever had. He would lose the childrens' trust and his role as their protector, the only thing she knew that had kept him from drowning in the horror of Tarsus.

Amanda needed to keep his secret and work on getting the children to camp by her own power. The alternative would hurt Jim more than she was even able to fathom, and at this point the thought of hurting that child was like severing her own arm.

_To Be Continued..._

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_**This is a non-profiting, fan-based work of fiction. Star Trek and all subsequent properties are (c) Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.**


	3. Three of Seven

**The Icicle Melts** Chapter 3  
**Author:** My Amalgamut  
**Universe/Series:** Star Trek {Reboot | STXI | AU}  
**Rating:** PG-13 (sensitive subject matter and some language)  
**Word count:** 5,281 (this chapter)  
**Genre:** General | Drama  
**Tropes:** Tarsus IV  
**Warnings:** Sensitive subject matter including (but not limited to) child neglect, abuse, and genocide  
**Summary:** Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk. Logic would tell anyone to step back and leave it. Amanda had been called a great many things in the years since Vulcan had been made her home... but logical certainly wasn't one of them.  
**Beta:** The awesome _fagur_fiskur._

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_**The Icicle Melts**

_Chapter Three_

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Paper work, as Amanda called it, was really high up on Jim's list of 'most boring crap I've ever spent my time doing', and that was coming from a kid who grew up in Riverside, Iowa. ("Wait, how can it be paper work without any paper?" Jim asked just to be cheeky, though he feigned obtuse well. Amanda didn't answer him aside from a laugh and, "You really _are_ startlingly alike.") Amanda had asked for his help with it because they'd gotten a really large shipment of supplies, and apparently she was the only one capable of cataloguing and distributing everything around camp with any efficiency.

At least to hear her relate it. ("Go PhD." "You hush.")

So there they were, sitting 'Indian style' across from one another, various PADDs scattered around them, and he wasn't even complaining. Jim currently had two in his lap that he was logging simultaneously, and really he couldn't understand what was so great about Starfleet education when he could get their tasks done faster than academy graduates twice his age. He guessed he'd jinxed himself with that one, because the second the thought entered his head he made his first mistake. Not a big one, but it was still irritating enough to draw a curse from under his breath.

"Damn it," he whispered, backtracking.

"Language," Amanda scolded on a sing-song note, focus staying on her work.

Jim paused what he was doing and looked up at her with a calculating tilt to his head. He decided it was time for a little break, and so set his PADD aside and moved so he could stretch his legs. Leaning back on his arms, he said abruptly, "I bet you've got kids."

"Oh?" she prompted, voice taking an interested lilt. She had yet to remove her attention from the data she was sorting, but managed the conversation unhindered. "I suppose you have a theory?"

"Well, you're jus' real... mom-like. I guess." Jim shrugged, because really, what did he know about moms?

Amanda hummed in acknowledgment, taking his statement as something of a compliment. "I do, as a matter of fact. I have a son- Spock."

_"Spock?"_ Jim parroted, and it actually came out sounding like a squawk, rolling awkwardly off his tongue.

His tone called for her full attention and she glanced to him, laying the stylus on the PADD in her lap and propping her hands on her hips. "And just what it wrong with the name 'Spock'?" she playfully demanded, voice haughty.

Jim averted his gaze and scooted sideways to rest his back against the large metal crates next to them. He kept his legs straight out in front, watching his shoes a little too intently as they waved from side to side in opposite motions. He coughed, scratching the tip of his nose, and muttered, "Dunno, just... you said you were from Seattle, right? Not a real Seattle name's all."

Hmm, yes, she mused. Cheeky. Amanda set her PADD on the ground and assumed a more relaxed position herself, very similar to his own if a little less slouched. "Well, no, it's not. I was born there, but it hasn't been my home for some years now. Besides, Spock was given his name through his father's lineage."

"Who I'm guessing... isn't from Washington?"

Amanda was familiar with this game of twenty questions. It was Jim's favorite way of siphoning information out of her and she humored him for the most part. Found it amusing, even. Particularly if the question he asked startled snorts of laughter that she couldn't contain.

"No, no," she said, recovering a straight face and clearing her voice lightly to prevent any more embarrassing sounds. She was happy enough that Jim didn't seem to notice her slip from poise, or at least didn't comment on it. "My husband isn't from Earth at all, actually."

That certainly piqued the boy's interest, as she suspected it would. Jim's eyes went wide. "You married an alien?"

Amanda grinned a bit wryly. "A Vulcan, to be precise."

If she sounded just a little smug about it, well, that was alright because she had married a Vulcan after all. Or really, she'd coerced a Vulcan into marrying _her_, and if that wasn't testament to her powers of persuasion then nothing was. She was rather proud of herself for it.

"A Vulcan?" Jim echoed rhetorically, and she wondered if he was going to give her the same befuddled response most did when her marriage was called into question.

Amanda had grown used to the unspoken _but why_'s that laced others' reactions to the news, but it could sting to hear all the same, even after so long. She loved her family and was not now, nor ever would she be ashamed of her choices.

Her doubt was quickly suspended, however, when Jim just shrugged in casual acceptance and said, "That's pretty cool." Her astonishment at his reply physically manifested in the tiny jolt her shoulders gave. Her eyebrows rose in a habit she, admittedly, had picked up in more recent years. She tilted her head a bit to study him more clearly.

"Is it?" she marveled, stunned that he should think so.

Jim shrugged again, growing self-conscious under her scrutiny. "Well, sure. I mean, they say those guys are all logic and no feelings, right? I figure it must be pretty interesting to go head-to-head with that every day. Like, I dunno, a challenge. I've always been kinda good with challenges, I guess Vulcans'd be up my alley that way."

She could agree with the sentiment, mostly. _A challenge_ some days, certainly, she thought dryly. A blatant test of endurance, others.

She couldn't resist. "You would enjoy matrimony with a member of another species exclusively based on your propensity for arguing with them? Why, Jim, that's not very pragmatic," Amanda teased. Not pragmatic indeed, she derided herself with some sense of irony. And then made a private little joke regarding pots and kettles.

Jim squinted at her and scowled without conviction. "Hey, first? I didn't say nothin' about marriage- girls'r hard enough to understand as _friends_." Amanda adopted a very concentrated expression- eyebrows drawn together, lips pursed- and nodded her head gravely in agreement. Jim got the distinct impression that he was being patronized. He soldiered on. "Second, don't throw a bunch'a big words at me just 'cause you think I don't know what they mean. Geez, you get such a big head before or after you moved in with Vulcans?"

When Jim took the opportunity at some later point in time to tell her exactly what extra-terrestrial animal her cackling reminded him of (and oh, he would), Amanda would deny that she was even so un-lady like as to know how to cackle. Then she would probably send him to bed, because there was only so much abuse one could take. For the immediate she just embraced her raucous laughter and swatted at him, which he doggedly avoided.

"Can I ask you a question?" he started when her glee quieted.

"You may ask me a _second_ question," she replied with a smirk, sounding all too like the former school teacher.

Jim rolled his eyes but didn't stray off topic to barb back. "Do you... I mean, you live with 'em, so I guess you'd know, so uh, do you believe what everybody says about Vulcans? That they don't have any emotions?"

Well, that was the last question she could have expected. Amanda blinked slowly as her thoughts recollected, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Why do you ask?"

Most people did not ask Amanda about Vulcans because most people were perfectly happy with their presumptions. Vulcans were intensely private creatures, which fueled the negative impression many Humans had of them, because people often scorned what they didn't- or couldn't- understand. Vulcans, being what they are, were generally satisfied to let them assume. Amanda had never considered that a child would give it much contemplation, but as was usually the case with Jim, she had to learn to let go of her own pre-conceived notions.

"I just thought- well, I mean, s'all you ever hear about Vulcans. And people say it like it's bad- like it's wrong somehow. I jus' thought that was kinda stupid. I mean, not Vulcans being stupid, but just that nobody even knows nothin' about 'em and they still talk crap. I thought maybe, I dunno, maybe it's not like us, like we do, but just because... that doesn't mean they don't feel anything, right? Or that it's bad? S'just _different."_

Even accustomed to Jim's higher-than-average intellect, there were still instances like right then, where Amanda found herself at odds trying to synchronize the sheer scope of that intelligence with the thirteen year old boy in front of her.

"Stuff like that bugs me," he continued, oblivious of her awe. "When people talk like they know somethin' but they don't. Frank said crap like that all the time, nasty stuff about other peoples' planets when mom wasn't around." Jim avoided clarifying how often that may or may not have been. "An' not just Vulcans, neither. _Everyone_ got it. It was always stupid things, too, like what they ate or how they talked or what they looked like. I hated it. Growin' up with Frank... it was like if you weren't from Earth you didn't matter. I couldn't even bring friends home from school or anything, too scared he'd say somethin' awful and they'd hate me."

There was a drifting, far off look in Jim's eyes for a minute. A distant memory he'd caught himself up in. Then he shook his head and with a sheepish smile said, "Sorry, stupid people like that tick me an' I get carried away. Guess that's why I asked about Vulcans. Figure, you know, since I got the opportunity."

The words _Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations_ sprang before her mind's eye, and Amanda was struck with a great epiphany. Here was a child who, in spite of his intolerant upbringing, was capable of totally embracing the ideals of IDIC without even knowing what name to give it. She didn't know if Jim could understand how extraordinary that was.

IDIC was a concept introduced by the Vulcans, and one most Terrans could not truly grasp until their adult years, and through great exposure to outside influences at that. Xenophobic ideals and prejudices were still heavily indoctrinated in many young species like that of Earth, even among its own brethren; parents passed it to their children who passed it to their children. It could take countless generations to come before they had hope of breeding out such a ceaselessly spanning history of discrimination (which exhibited itself, ironically, in infinite combination). There were fewer practitioners of the ideology still that could express it even a fraction as purely, over the course of an entire lifetime, as Jim had just done with a few imperfect sentences.

Even Vulcans themselves had not evolved so far in their mindset as they would like to proclaim. A fact made more than clear by the constant ostracization her human-blooded son suffered at their hands year after year.

Amanda must have been on her train of thought for longer than she realized, because by the time she surfaced Jim had pulled a knee to his chest and was tugging idly at his shoe strings until they were almost completely un-looped. He looked very nervous, like he expected that she was mad at him for some reason, which was absurd. What reason could she possibly have to be angry with him? For speaking his mind?

"I thought 'cause you were married to one that I was prob'ly right," he mumbled, just to fill the silence. Or perhaps the thought he needed to explain himself. "I thought, you know, maybe I was... right." He huffed and yanked the string harder. "I sound stupid."

The falsehood of that statement was also absurd.

"No, Jim, I assure you, you do not sound stupid," she countered kindly, truthfully. "I'm not sure my marriage gives me much insight into Vulcans as a whole society, though." Which was a fib, actually, because marrying Sarek had submersed her as deep into their culture as any non-Vulcan could imagine being. Amanda was pushing the conversation, a tactic to keep Jim from pulling away from her and withdrawing into himself. It was an old song, and one she'd learned to sing well after twelve previous years of rehearsal. "How did you come to such a conclusion?"

Jim's cheeks flushed a light pink. He folded an arm over his knee and bent forward to rest his chin atop it. "You know what? I don't wanna be nosy, so, never mind okay?"

"Jim, it's alright to share your opinions. If I felt you were overstepping any boundaries, I'd have said so by now," Amanda assured him.

Jim pulled up the other knee. The silence stretched and she feared he'd shut himself down anyhow, but he again proved such concerns moot and answered her. "You... It's just... you married one of 'em. So I thought maybe I was right about Vulcans. 'Cause... 'cause love's an emotion, right? Like, a big one." He buried his nose in the crook of his arm so that his words came out muffled, but she could still make them out. "And... and... I don't think you'd marry someone who couldn't love you as much... as much as you loved them."

Her lack of vocals was most likely doing nothing to assuage Jim's misplaced guilt, but she couldn't help it if words were a struggle for her in that moment. Jim tucked the rest of his body in until he was balled up against the crates. It was painfully obvious that he thought he'd upset her further.

Of course Jim thought he'd upset her. It was the story of his life. He was always running his mouth until it got him into trouble. How many times, he asked himself, had Frank backhanded him for talking too much? And now he'd ticked off the one person in the entire universe that gave a damn about him. Vulcans weren't his business, and her life with them wasn't his business, and her marriage sure as hell wasn't his business. When was he going to learn to shut up?

"I'm sorry," he whispered, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't going to stand up and leave him by himself. He felt like a baby for it, and he knew he brought it on himself more often than not, but Jim was really sick of people up and leaving him. "Like I said, it's nunna my business. Don't know how many times I-"

"Jim," she cut him off. She wasn't sure why this child was so positive that everything he said was wrong, but she was not going to let him carry on that delusion, not in her presence. "I believe that you are one of the most insightful young men I have ever encountered. You don't need to apologize for anything."

A strange warmth washed over Jim at her words, an odd mixture of pride and embarrassment that made him want to grin to the moon and dig his head in the sand at the same time. He wasn't used to hearing praise, certainly not like that, and it was... nice. Unbearably nice. It sounded something like what he'd always hoped Winona would say. That she would finally look at him one day tell him that she was proud, that she- and the second he felt it, that pride, that _hope_, he instantly felt a shame ten times as potent. Because he was too old to start leeching onto substitutes now, wasn't he? This woman, Amanda, she had her own son, he reprimanded himself bitterly. _Spock_.

And even if she didn't, there was no room for Jim, not really. He knew all too well that it was one thing to be nice to him for a little while- a few days, a few months- but no one ever wanted him around for long. It hurt, but it wasn't like he couldn't understand it. Who could put up with an attention-starved little straggler like him for good? If someone felt sorry enough, maybe, but how selfish would it be to shove that on someone as nice as Amanda? Who had her own life and her own family and her own problems, and didn't need his mountain of issues piled on top.

He felt rotten, _spoiled_ for even thinking about it.

Jim was suddenly nauseous, and felt ready to do anything to change the subject. "So, I bet you miss them, huh?" he blurted.

"Pardon?"

"Your family," he clarified. "I bet you miss 'em."

"Oh," she said simply.

Amanda did miss them, more than words alone could express, and would have been very happy to talk about it anyway... except she had the needling feeling that this detour of topic was not the typical flightiness of a child's attention, but a very deliberate attempt to divert _her_ attention away from him. Of course, she knew better than to expect "typical" child behavior from him in any case, but Jim's reticence regarding himself both perplexed and distressed her. She could tell from her time with him that it was not a congenital introversion, that his aversion to the topic of _Jim_ was self enforced, and rather brutally.

Amanda had over a decade's experience with such disciplines within young minds, as both a teacher and later a mother, and could have drawn several conclusions as to how his had come to be that way. For Jim however, she was growing to suspect, to _fear_, that there was a darker reality lurking.

"Jim," she began, and he must have recognized the intent in her voice, because he peered up at her with the most desperate look she'd ever witnessed. She stopped short, lips still parted in preparation to speak. The sudden, stifling tension froze the both of them for what seemed like hours. In reality, only seconds passed as her gaze searched his frantically, trying to read what he wasn't willing to say. A plea gleamed in the unusual brightness of his eyes. Please, they begged, please, please, please don't ask, I could break.

Amanda had no choice but to relent. If it would pain Jim to talk about, then she would not force the issue, not until she knew the depths of that pain and could tactfully approach it. But even as she let her intensity fall back, her expression told him to make no mistake, that it _would_ be approached.

"I do miss them," she said softly, as if there had never been a break in their conversation, for Jim's sake. "Terribly. I speak with Sarek on the occasion that he isn't pre-occupied with his duties, and Spock I talk to at least every other day." The air was heavy around them, and she made a weak attempt to lighten the mood. "They pretend to only put up with my constant calling, for my _emotional_ support I'm sure, but I think they miss me just as much."

Jim forged a tired, fragile smile up at her. His lips quivered with the strain of holding it. "I know they do," he said sincerely.

The smile did not reach his eyes, which had deadened now that panic was not the only thing alighting them, and Amanda knew instantly that she could not hold the façade. Jim was a smart boy, independent beyond his years, a fact that she tried her best to be as respectful of as possible without worrying herself sick. This time, however, she could not look away or leave him to his own devices; she was going to lose her mind if she pretended nothing was wrong for even one more second.

If Jim couldn't, or wouldn't, talk with her, she only knew of one other option.

"Have you..." she started and trailed off, not entirely sure of the suggestion she was about to make. She had her rising doubts about Jim's home life, particularly from what she'd heard of his step father, but he'd said very little regarding the other half of his parentage. Despite her insecurity, something desperately needed to happen here, and as much as Amanda wanted to take up that torch herself it was plain to see that Jim did not view her as the right person. It was hard, but she had to admit that perhaps she just wasn't. "Jim, when was the last time you spoke with your mother?"

A ripple of shock ran visibly through Jim's body, his every limb seizing up. It was like the current of energy around them changed, inverted, and buzzed over her uncomfortably down to the smallest hair follicle. Amanda got the very real sense that she'd just made a colossal error.

Jim stood quickly.

"Like, two days ago?" he said hastily, his tone overly flippant. A lie. "I dunno, she wanted me to come home but I said I wanted to stay an' help, you know?" A _terrible_ lie, and one he couldn't possibly think she would accept. "And I do- wanna help, I mean- but I said it really 'cause I can't leave my kids."

Amanda pushed herself off the ground, too, standing to follow. "Jim-"

"The kids," he interrupted, voice higher than he might have intended. He was fidgeting and his eyes wouldn't stay on one point in the tent, and wouldn't meet hers. He backed away, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed and knew without a doubt that he was about to run. She moved to reach for him, had barely lifted her hand, and Jim jumped like a startled cat. "I should go check on 'em." His words hitched with the sudden jarring. "I've been spending too much time away anyways."

_"Jim-"_ she tried insistently, desperately. The air shifted again, and his erratic behavior stopped only long enough for him to smile at her once more. There was a sad kindness in it, something old and weary that stopped her heart. It was an achingly lonely smile.

"Don't worry about it, okay? I'm fine. I'm always fine." This time the ground covered by his steps was generous as he backed swiftly from her reach. "I'm not gonna _go_ go, so you don't gotta worry. I just wanna see my kids an' clear my head. I'll be back and finish helping." He gestured to the long forgotten chore strewn at their feet. "Okay?"

Jim didn't wait around for her to say _no, that is not okay_ and in the time it took her to blink he was gone. Amanda knew there would be no finding him until he decided she could, and so she was left alone with her PADDs and her distraught self for company.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong. And how long, she wondered, had the signs been staring her in the face and she'd been as good as blind? Amanda could have hit herself; for all of her talk… Nevertheless, she had no time for wallowing over her ignorance. Amanda Grayson was not a woman of inaction, and as sightless as she'd been before, her vision was now twice as clear. The solution was logical: if something was broken, then it was to be fixed.

If something in Jim was broken, _she would fix it_.

With determination anew, Amanda pushed her official duties aside and made her way from the supply bay towards the communications tent. She allowed her mind to wander as she walked. The first thing the volunteers did when a civilian was recovered was contact any known relatives and apprise them of the survivor's condition and transport status. She remembered looking for Jim's the very day he'd given her his last name. She further recalled the sordid brand of relief it had been to find out he'd been staying with distant relatives on Tarsus. It meant, presumptively, that he was one of the lucky few who had a real family to return to. Amanda had not, however, been the one to make the call herself, as she now wished she had.

As she sped across the grey, impoverished landscape of the compound, kicking up a trailing cloud of dust and gravel in her haste, she thought back to what Jim had said about speaking with his mother. Amanda wondered how long it had truly been since their last communication, and how much it may have to do with his veiled malcontent now. What had they really spoken about, she asked herself, because Jim had provided her with a very abridged version of a very dubious scenario. Jim was tooth and nail intent on remaining with his kids, that much was true. Had that stubbornness provoked an argument when they'd last spoken? Had he been dealing with _Frank?_

Whomever, she was going to speak with them and get to the bottom of this. Amanda strode into the tent and spotted the volunteer on rotation for that shift. A dark, handsome young man in his mid-twenties named Katim. She'd had a conversation or two with him in passing, and thought that he was nice enough. He had plans to attend Starfleet the coming year, and had thought the volunteer work would be good for his application. She doubted that Tarsus had ever been what he'd had in mind.

"Katim," she greeted, smiling though she didn't much feel it. "Would you by chance have access to the colonists' call logs?"

"Sure, Amanda," he replied. Then after a pause said, "You look upset..."

"We'll see," she sighed vaguely with a light wave so that he might drop the issue. She doubted he was one to pry, really, and likely only mentioned anything out of courtesy. "I would like for you to pull up the contact registries for James Kirk, if you don't mind."

"Oh, the Kirk kid?" he said as he spun in his chair and tapped a command onto the touch screen at his left. "I've seen him in here a couple times. Not lately, though. I'd thought maybe they finally sent him home."

She made a non-committal noise, half listening while awaiting the information she sought. "Oh." She heard him murmur faintly. It was not a pleased sound.

"What?" she asked, voice filled with apprehension. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He frowned and quickly amended with, "Nothing _technical._ It's just... Well, look." He directed a hand to the larger screen positioned in front of Amanda. He tapped a new command and the black of the monitor flickered to white and then Starfleet blue. Letters and numbers scrolled across the screen and she immediately saw the name 'Kirk', and then the name 'Winona', and then the name 'James'.

"See the one at top?" he asked and she nodded. "That's the first call made to this number, the listing for Winona Kirk." He pointed helpfully as he spoke. "That first one was made by a doctor, probably when he was brought into camp originally, you know, standard procedure. You can tell the contact was successful by the time stamp here, and see the duration of the call here."

"I'm not sure I understand the problem. We were able to get in touch with his family and advise them of the situation, right?" she queried and faced him.

"Yeah, but, that's the only one that ever got through."

A look of confusion crossed her face as she turned back to the screen. She traced her finger across the white font of the other logs. "What about these? It looks like Jim has made several calls home."

"No one picked up, apparently," Katim rejoined, frowning deeper. To demonstrate, he scrolled the menu over and the red, bold face of the words that appeared after Jim's name- after his name _each and every time_- struck her like a slap to the face. 'Failed Connect' bled across the screen.

"No one... picked up," she echoed as if in a trance.

_"Or_ ever called back," the man next to her added, voice softer to match her own. "Poor kid."

"How... how is he still here, on this planet, if we've had no correspondence? Someone must have arranged something," she pleaded, though to whom or what was anyone's guess. "Starfleet couldn't have just forgotten about him."

Katim shrugged. "It's damn sad but it doesn't surprise me with how crazy things get around here. Yeah, there's a few 'Fleet grunts out there-" at this he flipped his thumb behind him, gesturing to the camp grounds outside, "-but they don't pay attention to our side of the operation. We're pretty much on our own until they send a retrieval ship back out. Everything's so disorganized I'm not shocked a little kid like Kirk slipped through the cracks, especially if no one…" he choked off as he caught himself before the last word. After all, Amanda's regard for Jim was no secret around camp. Not that it mattered, because she already knew the end to that sentence.

"If no one cares," she finished, barely a whisper, bottom lip trembling.

No one... No one had answered Jim's calls. Her eyes scanned the lines, but the words and numbers were blurring together until they no longer had definite shape. There was a stinging behind her eyes, but she could not connect the sensation with the tears that were building. She felt utterly _disconnected_. No one, not once, had answered his calls. No one, not once, had made any attempt to call him. No one had done _anything_ for Jim.

She was not cognizant of a thing Katim said in the afterwards, though peripherally she could hear him speaking, as if through a tunnel. Her awareness was rapidly fading from anything beyond her own pulse, which pounded in her ears. Amanda was an even-tempered woman by nature, never quick to anger even before pledging a life among Vulcans, but that did not mean the emotion was a complete stranger. No, she most definitely had a breaking point and had, in fact, reached it. She embraced her outrage like an old friend, and let it ground her as it swelled up in a flash of heat, wringing her insides until she felt like she might tremble apart at the seams.

For a small eternity, she could only think of one name. _Spock_.

Specifically, Amanda thought about how it would feel for her as a mother, to be told that her son (her heart, her life, her breath) had been in Jim's place. If _Spock_ had been living on a world struck by famine, starvation and illness gnarling at his heels like a black plague. If _Spock_ had been thrust, with no one to turn to, into the carnage of Kodos' senseless murdering. _Spock_ outnumbered by death and rot wherever he turned. _Spock_ brutalized, hunted by armed men three times his size, knowing they meant to kill him. _Spock_ wasting, sick, hungry. _Spock_...

Amanda would lay down and die.

She could not begin to reason what kind of mother- what kind of woman who thought she had the _nerve_ to call herself so- abandoned their child to a place like Tarsus. And Jim had been abandoned, of that she had no misgivings. Tears, refusing to be held at bay any longer, rolled hot and wet down her cheeks. She did not move, could not make a sound; did nothing to wipe the tears away even as they covered her chin and splashed on her collarbone.

Amanda was shocked still, seething, unable to understand the woman who had condemned her baby to Hell.

_To Be Continued..._

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**This is a non-profiting, fan-based work of fiction. Star Trek and all subsequent properties are (c) Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.**


	4. Four of Seven

**The Icicle Melts** Chapter 4  
**Author:** My Amalgamut  
**Universe/Series:** Star Trek {Reboot|STXI|AU}  
**Rating:** PG-13 (sensitive subject matter and some language)  
**Word count:** 4,356 (this chapter)  
**Genre:** General|Drama  
**Tropes:** Tarsus IV  
**Warnings:** Sensitive subject matter including (but not limited to) child neglect, abuse, and genocide  
**Summary:** Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk. Logic would tell anyone to step back and leave it. Amanda had been called a great many things in the years since Vulcan had been made her home... but logical certainly wasn't one of them.  
**Beta:** The awesome _fagur_fiskur_ . Mad props, hun.

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**The Icicle Melts**

_Chapter Four_**  
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Amanda had fled the communications tent in tears. Katim didn't give chase, for which she and her pride were grateful. Amanda couldn't imagine what she looked like at that very moment, pacing in circles, wearing a ring into the dirt beneath her feet with hands flinging this way and that as she spoke anxiously into the air. She imagined, whatever the spectacle, that it wasn't a model of perfect mental health. Which was fitting, actually, as she felt just a little crazy.

"What are you _thinking_, Amanda?" she said and paused her steps for a second, tilting her head back to glare at the cloudless sky. She _tsked_, shook her head and pivoted on her heel, marching the other way. "This is crazy and brash and-and... entirely reckless!"

Pivot, pace, stop. Rinse, repeat.

She brought a hand up and pinched the bridge of her nose. This absolutely had to stop. "But what else am I expected to do?"

What _was_ she supposed to do? An idea had sparked, fiery and bright, in the quick of her anger and now even as the simmer of her blood cooled, and she could rationalize above the tide of her personal feelings on the matter, it would not be ignored or discarded. It was a ridiculous notion, illogical, too complicated, too impossible... but it nagged at her, tugged at the back of her mind and she could not silence her brain on it.

The part of her that had been preserved beyond the Vulcan institutes of thinking asked why she would want to. Or, more accurately, said _logic schmogic_. Indeed.

"Amanda, you can't seriously..." Dear lord, arguing like this with herself. She couldn't think of a time she'd ever been closer to pulling her hair out, sans a few memorable debates with Sarek (he loved to argue, and he loved to argue that he didn't argue; premature baldness was as good as inevitable) but even the memory of those non-arguments dwelled on an entirely different level of derangement.

Oh yes, and what of Sarek. What would her husband have to say about her query? Or Spock, for that matter?

"This shouldn't even be up for debate. It's a preposterous, half cocked idea and you don't even know how it would be possible." Amanda imagined she should be wagging a finger at herself, but assumed that may be a step too far in the direction of gone. She resolved, "It's _not_ possible."

There had to be alternatives, _obvious_ alternatives, but when she tried to come up with even one her gut twisted and quivered nauseously, like she'd been making her meals of rocks lately. Her stomach rolled stubbornly in the attempt to shift her thoughts in any other direction. Confounding! Her heart and mind hadn't been at such odds with one another in so many years, she couldn't properly remember an exact instance. Why she was utterly unable to abandon the idea of- _Oh..._

Oh no...

She placed a hand over her face and breathed deeply. "I cannot believe I just... _Abandon?_ How could I think such a callous thing?"

This bizarre tango between her humanity and her sense of reason came to a sudden, screeching halt when Katim came careening towards her. He'd appeared so fast that she wasn't sure where he'd come from, and he was yelling something she couldn't clearly hear at a distance.

"Miss Grayson!" he shouted again breathlessly, coming closer, skidding to a stop just before it seemed he would barrel into her. Normally a graceful young man from what Amanda had noticed, it had to have been a great panic to engender such a gangly display. "Miss Grayson, it's the Kirk kid!"

She startled, her focus narrowing to nothing outside of- "Jim? What? What is it?" She took a nervous step forward. "What's happened to Jim?"

"He- he's got a little girl with him," Katim answered, doing his best to gulp air back down and speak at the same time. "I don't know what's going on, but she needs help and he won't let anyone get close. They've all crowded him in at the main entry." He was panting the words, running them together, but she managed to keep up. "I think he's scared. I just, you're the only one I could think-"

Amanda didn't need to know more, couldn't afford the time to know more. She just shoved past him with the hope he wouldn't begrudge her for her haste, mindful only of the trouble Jim might be in. She would need to hurry, already scared of what the Starfleet soldiers might be doing to take matters into their own hands. It was a long way back around, if only evidenced by Katim's shortness of breath. To speed her way to the central area of camp, she slipped into the first gap she spotted, between the large equipment crates that were kept in stacks all over the site.

Completely heedless of the grime it smeared across her breast, or the odds and ends that nicked her skin and clothes as she squeezed through, Amanda paced herself recklessly fast where she had room to run, and slipped through the cracks where she didn't. Having been acclimated for years now into a social, comfortable sort of lifestyle, she'd not had much call for athleticism. She paid for it now with the embarrassingly quick set in of a burning in her lungs, and the quiver of underused muscles. She hauled herself past succumbing to these physical limitations, and pressed on with only one goal, one name, in sight. Time passed with no real concept and it could have been minutes or hours for all Amanda knew, it only seemed an eternally stretching path before she would reach her destination.

Finally, she stumbled back around the communications tent to find the crowd that had formed near the middle of camp. Winded, muscles exerted from climbing and scrabbling beyond the obstacles presented by every setup in their garrison, she ignored it and tore off at a sprint across the yards separating her from the horde. As she approached, Amanda began to make out the small, hunched over figure the commotion surrounded. She drew nearer, sped her legs impossibly, Closer vantage proved that it was Jim- dirty, huddled into himself and whatever he covered with his body. He was like a junkyard dog with his wild eyed snarling, ready to bite whoever tried to get close.

"Jim!" she cried as she collided with the throng of aids and officers. She yelled louder as she drove through the bodies to get to him. She grunted delicately, a mix of frustration and exhaustion, as she shoved aside elbows and shoulders. She didn't care about the curses that followed a particularly thoughtless palm to a face, or the trampled toes in her wake. She didn't care. "Jim!"

The sea of people parted at last, maybe realizing it was safer to just get out of her way, and let her move into the boy's line of sight. The blue eyes that met hers were brightly tearful, pupils dilated and frightened.

"Please," he gasped, unfurling. His face changed at the first sight of her, thrusting his hope and trust at her fully, without hesitancy, without thought. She watched him reveal the little body he'd tucked against himself. He lifted the girl gently to meet Amanda's arms halfway as she reached out. "Please, she's sick!"

She took the girl from him carefully, shuffling the near weightless bundle of child until her hold was secure. "Jim, do you know what happened?"

Jim blubbered back, hysterical and confused, "I- I don't know, she was okay yesterday, I swear. But they said that- the others said that she started throwin' up this morning and that she was sweaty and shivering. She's burnin' up and now I can't get her awake-"

"Shh, shh, it's okay Jim, it's okay. We'll help her- Jim!" His shoulders jumped. He sniffed wetly and got quiet, retraining his hysterics though he still twitched with vibrating tension, but he was listening. "Pay attention, now. I need you to do what I tell you," she said firmly, and he straightened up more, tears still falling but he did what she ordered and raptly. "I need you to run very fast to the medical tent. Do you remember which one that is?" He nodded vigorously. "Good. Tell the first nurse you see to get a bed ready and that we need a doctor immediately." Amanda shifted again, pulling herself up and cradling the child- toddler, no older than three or four- closer. _"Immediately_, do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, determination sweeping his posture.

She jerked her chin once in the direction he was to go and that was all the pause Jim needed to give. He kicked off without another word. Amanda paid as little mind as she could to the people around her, paying as much of it as possible to the tiny girl in her arms. Still, now that her attention wasn't solely fastened on Jim, the murmurs were rising from a bland white noise to a distinct a cappella, and try as she might Amanda couldn't block out some of the more worrisome voices.

Someone, she couldn't bother to look and see who- mostly because she did not _want_ to see who and be coerced into a confrontation- slinked up just behind her and hissed, "What does he mean _the others?_"

"This is really not the time," she snapped back, stern through clenched teeth, bridging no argument. The threat in the stranger's tone stirred a chill in her, and she knew even as she felt the too-close body slip back an appropriate tenor (she suspected not as much out of respect as it was to silently patronize her well-known sense of propriety) that the subject would be dropped now, but rise again with vengeance at some unknown point in the future.

Fine, then. If that was to be later, then it would be _later._ Amanda Grayson would not be intimidated by some rude figment, or be goaded into a diversion by some petty tactic, and she found new energy in her stressed muscles to stand a little taller- a little stronger. She moved away from whomever this person was that had taken it upon themselves to impose on her so grossly. Then she kept moving away, until she found herself briskly walking the path that followed after Jim, to the medical wards. She kept her steps even, her upper body as still as possible, because she did not know how truly fragile the girl in her arms might be. He breaths came a bit deeper, a little easier, as she distanced herself from the gaggle of relief aids-turned-spectators.

Amanda entered the medical tent just as nurses were setting up. One of the women saw her, and what she'd carried in, and silently directed her to lay the little girl out on the prepared bed. She noticed Jim in the corner, watching them intently, but judging by the storm over his face she had no idea if it was them he was actually seeing. It was just as she finished helping to arrange the weak little limbs into a comfortable position that the doctor waltzed in.

The doctor was a slightly stout Denobulan male. He arrived in the midst of pulling on his white lab coat, with the sun off his back, a keen smile and keener eyes. He was comely in a way that made something about him almost childlike, like wonder, even though his eyes belied the wisdom of his many years. He smiled, the gesture literally dominating half his face, and Amanda had the notion that she could respect a man, of any species, who'd been on Tarsus for as many months as they had and could still do such a thing. She considered, also, that perhaps most of their colleagues would misconstrue his nature as misplaced for the same reasons, but Amanda knew that it was possibly the most admirable. It made her wonder what this Denobulan had been witness to in his lifetime, though admittedly (and here she knew she sounded naïve) she genuinely didn't like the suggestion of things in the universe that were worse than Tarsus.

Amanda hadn't made much contact with this doctor in her time on the colony, possibly regrettably now that it occurred to her, but his reputation preceded him and she knew at least that his name was Phlox.

"Well, let's see just what we can do for this youngling, shall we?" He announced as he dug into a box and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, snapping them on. He looked to Amanda, the wrinkles around his inhumanly large grin deepening at the same time they did in the creases around his eyes. A juxtaposition: the child, curious in the vastness of the universe still, and the wise old doctor who'd maybe seen too much of it. She worried that maybe his eyes already knew what he was seeing more intimately than the tricorder would. "What do we know so far?"

Amanda launched into the by-now methodical routine of recounting the symptoms of a rescue victim. "Sudden illness. Apparently she exhibited no prior symptoms of sickness other than the standard malnutrition. She became physically ill, vomiting having only been induced as of this morning according to witnesses, and has been unconscious with fever for..." she trailed off, looking to Jim for confirmation. His eyes were steadily on them, or so it would appear, but he seemed to be in a daze and didn't realize that the conversation had been handed to him. Amanda leaned over slightly to catch his gaze, and incited softly, "Jim?"

His head jarred up. He blinked at Amanda slowly, the glaze only half lifting from his eyes, and it was a few seconds before he said anything. Strangely, though he'd been obviously lost in thought, he managed to answer the question without it needing to be repeated. He whispered it. "A few hours, I think."

The doctor looked from Amanda to Jim, then back to her. He assessed them a moment, and then something akin to understanding came over his alien face. His smile ticked down a notch, but ultimately stayed kind, before he said, "I see. Well, we'll certainly do what we can. Sounds like we might be lucky enough to have caught whatever ailment it is in the early stages, but I'll have to leave a prognosis until we've run some tests."

He made a vague gesture to one of the nurses, a plump red woman not even reaching Amanda's collar. The nurse bustled over with a PADD, handed it off to the doctor, and then moved to the other side of the bed where Amanda stood. She began making a shooing motion with her pudgy hands. When Amanda didn't react immediately, she shooed closer.

Dr. Phlox addressed her once more before investing himself in the data on the PADD. "I'll send for you when I have a diagnosis... Miss Grayson, yes?"

Amanda, struggling to back away and keep her footing against the fluttering gestures of the nurse edging her out of the tent, spared half an anxious glance from the fidgety woman to the doctor. "Ye- yes. Thank you."

The nurse appeared satisfied that Amanda and her charge were going to leave, and thankfully backed off. Seeing that they were now being ignored, Phlox saying something to the nurse in what must have been her native tongue- Amanda blinked once and shook her head- she moved over to Jim and laid a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was gentle but insistent as she guided him out of the tent alongside her. She could feel the tension winding through his body, the bunched muscles underneath her hand trembling so hard it was practically a hum. He didn't speak as they walked. He kept up with her stride, but even his footfalls were disturbingly silent as she hurried them past any possible onlookers to where they'd been sorting cargo earlier, knowing that the area would still be clear.

They barely made it inside before Jim crumpled away from her. She flinched, her breath hitched on a gasp when he glanced his shoulder hard off one of the large metal crates. He didn't look like he even felt it. She reached out but he only jerked away: a clear warning, _don't touch me_. They stood apart, Amanda quickly losing sense all over again of what she should or could do for Jim. They stood, mute, and a foot or a world apart it couldn't have mattered as the silence stretched between them painfully and uselessly.

Until it broke.

It was like a dam inside Jim had burst and he slumped forward, sobbing so wretchedly that her knees buckled with the sound of it. Jim's side drug across the uneven ridges of the metal as he swayed unsteadily, back bowed, hunched over himself like most of his puppet strings had been snipped, but the one thread left meant he couldn't topple completely. Amanda stood still, watching in agony but gruelingly forced to remember that she was not invited to act yet. His head stayed low, nose to the floor so that she couldn't see his face or his tears. Even when he spoke, she doubted that it was really to her at all.

"How can I-" he mumbled, words muddled and wet. His body wrenched as he gagged on another angry sob. He made a noise, like a scream caged in his throat, strangled, and lifted his frame only to slam his back with full force against the crate. He made another noise, similarly beset by malaise, and began to grab blindly at the soft tendrils of hair near his ears.

"Why do I always fuck up so _badly?_" he bawled scratchily, and pounded a fist to the crate. She wanted to say something, to tell him _no Jim, no_, but she was unsure if it was wise to even speak. He didn't wait for her to figure it out, which meant he hadn't wanted her to, and kept going. "I tried. I really tried so hard but I... It's jus' like..." He looked up, eyes seeking, beseeching something from her he couldn't actually ask for. She stamped down brutally on the thump of her heart that wished, for only the second it ached- just the _second_- that he hadn't. He just looked so wrecked, so sorry. "I kept 'em safe, I swear I did. I didn't mean to." Jim bit his lip and swallowed, throat bobbing. He whimpered and swallowed again. "I'm sorry. I really- I thought I..." Detaching his gaze and bending over just until his hair fell loose over his ruddy cheeks again, Jim hugged his arms around himself at the middle. He lost the fight against his body's need to weep, and his following words drown in it. "I thought I did good this time."

As he turned away, he caught his hand too heavily between his leg and the crate. She knew it must have hurt, saw red freshly blister across his knuckles, but he just bit back any expression of pain. With his back turned to her, she'd lost hope for trying to read him, to find some answer the plea in his eyes.

"You know three of them died in the beginning?" he began, breaths shuddering. She recognized the noises he was making as those any child made when they were forcing themselves to quit crying, because they were ashamed or someone else was ashamed of them. It was snotty and miserable. Amanda had a creeping inkling of what he getting at, and Jim confirmed it soon enough. "They were all really little, really sick by time I found 'em, and I- I couldn't help. An' Kevin told me it wasn't my fault, but-" He sniffled, shrank further. "But what's a little kid like that know, huh? I was the only thing they had. I was the only chance they had left and I couldn't hack it, just like I couldn't... like I could never..."

He stopped, sentence evaporating between his lips. It was very, very quiet for a moment. Amanda didn't know what to expect, and that legitimately _scared_ her. And still, she felt as if she were forbidden from taking so much as a noisy breath.

"Amanda..." he implored, finally. Her name came unexpected, and she knew even less what to anticipate. Jim turned to face her, stared up with red-rimmed eyes that still begged for something nameless. "What if she dies, too? What if I killed her?"

Then, in the smallest voice:

"Why am I so worthless?"

_"You are not worthless,"_ Amanda snapped before the last hiss of the 's' could even finish off his tongue, the words rattling choked out of her throat, so riddled with emotion that it smothered the volume. She didn't know if she'd crossed that boundary that had stayed her tongue up until then, she didn't know even really what she's said until it was out and done. All she knew was that she was furious. So, so, so furious. Not at Jim, but at whoever had dared let this boy grow up thinking he was anything but precious.

Worthless? He thought he was worthless? That was not an idea a child came upon by themselves, it was not a feeling developed from thin air, it was a seed _planted_, and then allowed to fester. A child did not feel worthless until they were taught to feel it. "Jim, you're a child. An extraordinary one, without question, but still a child. You can't always do everything by yourself." She'd spoken, and now she dared to move, to gently rest her fingers on his shoulder. He made no protest, and she braved to move that hand again, brushing a lock of clinging blonde hair from his watery eyes. "Jim, sweetheart, that doesn't make you worthless."

Maybe it was her words, maybe her tone, maybe just because she was there, but something cracked further, deeper than it ever had. It stole over his face and Jim's entire body lurched back as if struck, and then he lashed out livid and confused, and so hurt. He slapped the offending hand away and screeched, staggering back.

"How would you know?" he accused, cheeks flushed darker with rage. He spit the charge like an attack, as if the words were acid that could burn her. "How can you just stand there an' say- say- you don't know _anything_ about me!"

"Jim-" she entreated, chasing his retreat.

"No!" he spat, coughing on a tight breath. She reached, he pushed. "No! Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!"

"Why?" she demanded. "Jim, why!"

"Go away!"

_"Why?"_

He knew what she was really asking. The questions were cloaked, testing, like dipping a toe in the churning, volatile waters that made up Jim's emotions. Of course he knew, because he wasn't dumb. Or maybe he knew because somewhere sloshed and lost in the riptide of his feelings, buried and near forgotten, he desperately wanted someone to ask. _Please just ask_. Amanda was asking. His cheeks red and shiny wet, his limbs shaking in anger and hurt and embarrassment, his lips trembling, he answered her the only way he knew how. "Because I just _am_. I know I am, 'cause else why?"

"Why _what_, sweetheart?"

He bared his teeth. "I… I- I don't know!"

The heart of it. She was so _close_. So close to the heart of it.

"Why what, sweetheart?"

He cried out, voice ripped asunder. The roar of a lost little boy- a lord of flies, a king of wild things- and he pushed her, hard. "You're so stupid, you're so stupid!" But she didn't back down and didn't blame him. She hugged him. Wound her arms around his shoulders and trapped him, fighting, to her.

"Why what, sweetheart?"

Amanda had been wrong, before. No dam had broken. Jim had never been given the chance to build something so sturdy to protect himself. No, he'd been given the tools for a glass house. It was no wonder why he forced himself to hold so strong, and she realized that even then he still hadn't broken. Crack, yes. Oh, everything was cracked and chipped in so many places, and she finally understood what she'd been seeing in Jim. That she'd been praying witness to the spider web creeping across the glass. So fragile, and she was going to cast the final stone.

_Why what, sweetheart?_

When Jim broke, it demolished them both.

_Why what, sweetheart?_

Jim broke.

_"Why did she throw me away!"_

Amanda took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She grabbed him tighter, clutched for dear life, tucking his head beneath hers. Boneless, he sagged so small against her, trembling as the tears washed down his face and soaked through the collar of her shirt. It was okay to cry. He was not worthless, and it was okay to cry. She would hold him because he needed to know these things, and because when he was pushing he was really reaching for a mother that would not reach back.

"I don't know," she said softly and ran tender fingers through his hair. She'd torn a dark truth from the suffering heart of a child, but she did not have the gift of answers to give him in return. So Amanda would be here and she would hold him. "I don't know."

She didn't know why- or really even when she'd started doing it- until Jim's sobs began to mollify, but at some point she'd begun to softly rock them both side to side. The motion perhaps was helping to calm Jim, so she continued. After a while she heard him, not above a whisper, say, "I didn't mean it. You're not stupid." She laughed brokenly and pressed her cheek to the top of his scalp more firmly, and continued.

Spock would understand and Sarek would just have to live with it. Amanda had made her decision.

_To Be Continued..._

* * *

**This is a non-profiting, fan-based work of fiction. Star Trek and all subsequent properties are (c) Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.**


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